Apple Trees

I am researching apple trees since I want a few at my house. I am keeping with heirloom varieties. I start my quest at Edible Landscaping in Afton, VA.

• Liberty - resistant to mildew, cedar apple rust and fire blight and immune to scab, zones 4-7, self-fertile, crisp apple kind of like a McIntosh


• Enterprise -


• Honey Crisp - (had these at Westmoreland Berry Farm and my kids thought nothing was better than these apples)

Oh but I want kiwis, persimmons, berries, grapes, blackberries, jujubas, shitake log, and much more!

Vote for your Favorite Green Business!

Support businesses that are doing eco-friendly things by voting for the best Green Business today! My personal favorites are Reusablebags.com, To-Go Ware, and UsedCardboardBoxes.com.

Sheet Mulching

This past May, I posted about our guest and her kick in the pants to start gardening. This weekend, I am preparing more garden area for next spring. I am sheet mulching! Here's how I'm, doing it.

Today I used my flat spade to dig an edge to the garden bed. I used straight lines so it would be easy to use our riding lawn mower to follow. I removed 1/2 spade's worth of grass at the edge and put aside for later. In the morning, I will deepen this trench to about 5 inches using a small shovel and pick axe if needed. Then I will install the 5 inch plastic garden barrier edging that I purchased and use the spikes to pin it down. This point of this barrier is to help keep the grass roots from invading my garden bed. We have some nasty spreading grass and I really don't want to be pulling it out of my food plants all the time. Hopefully this will work! Now I can fill the inside.

First, a sprinkling of powdered lime to offset the acidic clay soil (although the acidity is hearsay as far as I am concerned - I have never done a soil test). The cardboard and thick newspapers get put down into a solid layer. The overlaps have to let no light in and no weeds through. This layer has to be good and soggy so liberal spraying with a hose will be needed.

Next goes fresh horse manure - just out of the stable this morning. Ideally the manure layer is a few inches thick; I'll just spread out what I have. Then a few inch thick layer of leaves. I grabbed these from a friend's house today. Her land is nothing but trees and a house. Great leaf production ;-) Then some compost, dried grass, anything else I can find which is organic. Oh I have some bone meal to sprinkle in there too. On top goes a thick layer of straw. Not hay which has seeds. This top layer has to have no seeds so you get no weeds. I might get some wood chips as well, but I'm curious how the straw does too.

That's it. Instead of composting kitchen scraps, I can just tuck the plant waste underneath the top layer and feed the worms and other organisms in my garden.

Than I'm going to go over to a friend's house and do it to her garden beds too!

For more info, here a couple sheet mulching links:
http://www.agroforestry.net/pubs/Sheet_Mulching.html
http://www.permaculture-exchange.org/sheet.html

Eco-Complacency

Now that I am done organizing the Enjoy Life Unschooling Conference, I have a lot more time on my hands. Or rather, I have my time back to do other things with. Which is why I am here. I need to admit out loud that I have been complacent about one of my most important principles. I have not had time to think about Being Good to the Earth.

How did I come to realize this? I was preparing for my most recent SSoMMd program: Big Numbers, Big World. I was looking up how examples of big numbers. In particular, I wanted the amount of trash Americans created last year. As I searched for this number, I ended up reading about trash reduction. In particular, I found the Green Garbage Project; a Portland, OR couple who are trying to make their total trash produced in a year fit into one plastic grocery bag. Now a few years ago, the Roots and Shoots group which I lead did a trash reduction challenge. We challenged folks to reduce their trash production by a factor of two. We found that our family of 4 makes so much less trash than most Americans that we had a hard time reducing further. But these folks at the Green Garbage Project are headed for a lot less trash than we make. Of course they don't have children and they are both taking on the challenge together. Can you hear the rationalizations in my head? I can.

So I started browsing their site. They send produce stickers to a Fruit Sticker Artist to be made into art. Cool. They send zipper plastic bags to Lou's Upcycles to be made into bags and other wares. I learned about Kraft paper tape for boxes instead of plastic. Its supposed to be recyclable, but I can't confirm that. The coolest thing I learned about was Portland's Master Recycler Program and classes. Wow, I want to be a Master Recycler! I'll bet I could co-lead such an endeavor though...

All this trash reading got me thinking. I have been assuming that since I am so ______ (full in the blank with any eco-friendly word), that there's little more I can do in that area. I have been looking to expand into new areas (making my own soda, chickens, gardening, etc.) But now, I realize that I have been laxidasical about my eco-work. I can improve in areas I already concentrate as well as expand. And I need to get to it!

So, what shall I change, improve, or adjust in my life to be more Good to the Earth? What an excellent question. Maybe as I relieve my house of the things we no longer wish to have, my thinking will clear as well. Tomorrow's task! For now, check out these two neat videos about worm composting and fast food trash.

Learning Bucaneers

I just read this book review about James Marcus Bach, a self educated guy who used to excel while working for Apple. He describes himself an a great unschooler: one who is concerned about learning, succeeding on ones own merits, working his butt off for something he is passionate about and actually caring about his work. Can't wait to read the whole book!

A Great List of Unschooling Blogs

Need some new pleasure reading from some way cool folks? Check out the bloggers on the 50 Eye-Opening Unschooling Blogs List. Many are friends or acquaintances of mine and I love to read their stuff. The category assignments are a bit on the creative side, but no matter.

Unschooling Article in Baltimore Sun

I was interviewed and contributed some quotes to today's article about unschooling in the Baltimore Sun. I thought the article was balanced and pretty good. Thanks Joe! But go further than the article. Read the comments. Wow, the comments are amusing, scary, and just encourage me gather like-minded folks around me a bit closer for protection.